The Problem With Waiting for 2028

Ain't nobody got time for that

Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know, you can’t explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. Like a splinter in your mind -- driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about? - Morpheus

We find ourselves in a very difficult moment. Political. Social. Economic. Democratic. Many of the weapons we built to defend the American empire is being weaponized against us.

Improved surveillance systems are being field tested by Israel against the Palestinians. Compromised courts and media giants are being brought to heel. We’ve seen it before in the 50’s under McCarthyism after 9-11 when the United States turned its security apparatus against Americans. Even Obama was willing to extrajudicially kill American citizens.

The fundamental problem is this: we cannot go backwards. Because backwards is led us to this moment. There is no doubt that we need to combat authoritarianism.

I don’t see a way of fending off fascism without offering an alternative. A hopeful logical alternative. We need to build a functional democracy, improve equity, restructure our economy in systemic ways. We need to unrig America. That requires winning hearts and minds.

One of the challanges in promoting and enacting a better vision is building unity. Getting people to work together.

Bernie Sanders says millions and millions of Americans need to stand together and say enough is enough. What I find ironic about that, depressing really, is that it’s very hard for Bernie Sanders and other progressive leaders to do the same thing.

Look around the political landscape today. Justin Pearson just announced a primary against Steve Cohen in Tennessee. Saikat Chakrabarti is running against Nancy Pelosi. Abdul El-Sayed is running a primary. Aftyn Behn, also in Tennessee. Kat Abughazaleh. Graham Platner in Maine with an agenda to transform lives. Zohran Mamdani trying to transform New York.

The core problem? None of these candidates alone can have much impact on their districts, states, or cities. They’ll need to work with others. Mamdani can’t transform New York City without transforming Albany. But that’s not the way politics is done in America.

Politics is the work of individuals. Campaigns are about a candidate. What they believe and how they are different. Uniquely suited to lead. The best for their city, their district, their state, or the country. They have very specific ideas about how things might happen. Or sometimes no idea in particular - they just know they have the stuff to get it done.

This lack of unity, this refusal to work together on rejecting the status quo - maybe that’s the biggest problem we face. Our politics is built around the idea of a single savior. Whether it’s someone running for president or running for mayor, we make campaigns about their story or their family. Not a mission. Not a goal.

The cost of that is when individual people pull off miracles - like AOC did - they become islands. And if these islands want to accomplish something, they have to work within the current power structure. The status quo. They become incapable of overturning the very problems that led us to this moment. Economic, democratic, structural, or otherwise. Not from a lack of will but from a lack of a team with a goal.

AOC said something early on, right after her primary win, “It takes a movement to fight a machine.” She is right but it’s not just the grassroots level that needs to unite. We need unity at the grass-top level. At the candidate level. The incumbent level. The small donor level.

Ro Khanna cannot do this alone. Bernie Sanders cannot do this alone. AOC cannot do this alone. But they aren’t working together. They have this fundamental belief that they’re fighting to represent their states and districts, and that’s where their obligation ends.

The fact is, what happens in San Francisco is directly tied to what happens in St. Louis, Knoxville, Nashville, New York City. Our fates are intertwined. You cannot separate what happens to the country from what happens to our cities or states.

Many problems may be local but most solutions are national. Until we figure out how to build a movement among people who want to lead congressional districts and states, we’re going to have a hard time dismantling the system that led us to authoritarianism.

The status quo is united. Billionaires and multi-trillion dollar companies are very much aligned with one another. Sure they compete but their interests are the same. And they fight for them. They act in relative concert. The mechanisms, the legislation, the power they seek - it’s all for their class. They will defend their class and this system to our death.

Personally, I’ve tried doing this in a number of ways. I co-founded Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats. Groups that recruited candidates like Cori Bush and AOC and Jamal Bowman. Groups that have continued to recruit candidates one-off. But we were never successful in building a team. Building a squad.

In fact, that whole squad thing was a bunch of horseshit. I’ve never seen people work together less. Ironic, I know.

And here’s the thing that really gets me. The progressive leaders who talk the most about transforming the party won’t lift a finger to help these candidates. AOC won’t endorse in Democratic primaries. Bernie won’t either. Out of deference to party norms. Out of some faith in a party they spend half their time criticizing.

Meanwhile, the establishment says we have to wait until 2028. Wait for the presidential primary to decide the direction of the party. Then we will have the tools to fight authoritarianism. Then we can compete with the ideas that fuel MAGA. It’s as if 2026 doesn’t matter. As if we’re supposed to put everything on hold while Trump consolidates power.

That’s not a winning strategy.

I also tried this working on both of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns. Traveling around the country, talking to volunteers and supporters about how they could become engaged, how they could help Bernie win. There was an element of hope in each of these instances.

But what was missing was a cohort. A coalition of people working to win power to make specific changes. If he become president without a wave of House and Senate seats behind him you’d have seen how hard the system can fight when it’s threatened.

But he nver tried to transform the party. Wage a full scale ideological war in the form of well funded well run primaries against powerful democratic incumbents. Why? Nobody wants to be blamed for Republicans winning and even though lots of centrists dems lose they don’t blame the ideology. But the progressives don’t have that luxery.

So absent a slate of candidates on a mission we support individuals. Personalities. And those individuals and personalities can be swayed, corrupted, frightened, or disillusioned. They need the strength and encouragement of a movement of peers and a movement of grassroots support. Hope and energy.

That’s what leaves me questioning - what is the way? How does one remove the ego, the idea of the individual savior? How do we remove the idea that only a presidential candidate can combine our energies together? That only a presidential candidate can set the direction of a party? How do we get away from that?

Because this isn’t working. We blame the two party system or this or that. But it can all be overcome with unity.

Look back at transformational moments. Progressivism. The New Deal. The Arsenal of Democracy during FDR’s terms. What you see is not just individual leaders, though they were important. You saw mobilization of ideas downstream from the Senate to the House to governor’s mansions to state legislatures.

People were fighting for worker power, public ownership, health care, an economic bill of rights. There was unity in the fight.

The same could be said of the civil rights movement. It achieved some of its goals because it had goals.

Right now, MAGA has a monopoly on a visionary movement. It’s dark and it’s bad. The alternative so far? Not that. I agree not that. But what instead?

We need to realize that the tools, the weaponry, the systems that allowed Trump to exist and take this power will not stop existing just because Trump loses power. Neither will the economic or social environments that led to the American people being open to this idea in the first place.

Those will be changed through effort. Hard work. Civic engagement and through success. Rebuilding trust by rebuild a better system. Doing this will require a people with purpose.

That is the challenge we face. Figuring out how to bring leaders together. How do we bring progressive organizations and unions together? All these groups ostensibly fighting for a better world, a better democracy, a more representative and equitable country.

Until we stand together, until our leaders stand together, we’re not getting anywhere.

If they’ve got time to call donors, they’ve got time to call each other. If they’ve got time to talk to reporters, how about they invite those reporters to a Zoom call with other similarly aligned candidates?

It’s about priorities. Making the effort. Doing the hard thing and putting yourself second, or third, or fourth.

That’s a damn hard thing to ask people to do.

But I keep coming back to this. If we had a way to force coordination, would people support it?

I’m talking about something simple. A slate of candidates running in 2026 who actually agree to work together. Not just agree in spirit - actually coordinate. Share resources. Vote together. Build power as a bloc instead of as individuals.

Would you sign something that said “I’ll support a coordinated coalition of candidates over individual stars”? Would you show up for them? Knock doors? Make calls?

Would you donate to a slate of people trying to accomplish a specific mission instead of giving to whoever has the best ad or the most compelling personal story?

Because here’s what I think. I think if we could show there’s real money and real grassroots support sitting there waiting for coordination, it might force the conversation. Not because politicians suddenly find courage. But because the incentive structure changes.

Right now the incentive is to run alone, build your own brand, protect your own territory. But if there was a pot of money and a movement of volunteers that only unlocked when candidates agreed to work together? That changes the math.

I don’t know if that’s the answer. But I know what we’re doing now isn’t working. And I know that unless we figure out how to build actual unity among people trying to lead, we’re going to keep sliding.

So I’m asking. Would you support that? Would you be part of forcing that conversation?

Because if enough of us would, maybe it’s time to stop asking leaders to do the right thing and start making it a viable path forward.